Welcome back to the Short Fiction SFF Round Up! I have 5 more stories I enjoyed and want to recommend to you for this, my 5th roundup of the year. I should point out that while not present in every story there is a quite a lot of grief and loss in the stories this week. That said, when those themes and experiences are in the stories I think they are handled well and explored with empathy and in the end these five stories each hit me just right when I read them and made me want to share them.
“History in Pieces” by Beth Goder from Clarkesworld #173
I’m always happy to explore stories with interesting structure and this one provides, as it’s name suggests, something of a puzzle structure. Its pieces of the tale told largely out of order come together to paint a picture of exploration and first contact, the beginnings of connection, and tragic ending for some. By the end, the alien archivist, Tan, who is creating the puzzle record, has become a fascinating character. I very much enjoyed moving back and forth through this story and its structure.
“The Billionaire Shapeshifters’ Ex-Wives Club” Marissa Lingen from Fantasy Magazine # 63
Let me tell you I was so happy to read this piece of flash fiction this week. It’s exactly the sort of thing I was looking for at the time: short and fun. In particular, when the reason for the honking outside the apartment the club is meeting in is revealed it’s pretty hard not to laugh. Personally I say, forget the Sex in the City reboot: someone adapt this and let me enjoy more of the club moving past their annoying shapeshifter exes.
“At the Intersection of Light and Sound” by Michelle Mellon from Fireside Fiction #88
This is a complicated, beautiful, tragic story that is also more than a little terrifying. It is one that I’ll be thinking about for quite some time I think. Music, the weight of family and family expectations, a future dying earth. Is the ending one of a glorious fulfillment of humanity’s cosmic existence, it’s return to the beginning? Or is it a meeting of personal and societal trauma in a terrible twisted idea of fulfilling destiny? Haunting and beautiful it’s definitely worth reading to consider for yourself. Don’t forget to check out the wonderful accompanying art!
“The Mathematics of Fairyland” by Phoebe Barton from Lightspeed #129
Marigold is desperate in her need to save her love, lost to an FTL warp-drive accident, even to the point of her trying to connect with fairies while living on a space station above Neptune, but how in danger is she to becoming lost herself? There are a lot of ways to tell stories about grief. I think that might be because loss is about as near-universal a human experience as there can be and death can bring with it such a variety of emotions and responses for those still alive. Even the lucky few who have yet to have felt the hole left by the passing of another have probably at least feared it. Perhaps strangely, if you think about it too much, some ways of telling stories about grief are really quite beautiful. This story is very beautiful, even as it is sad and heartbreaking. It is rooted in our protagonist’s own heart-break and pain, yes, but is so full of quiet empathy for and understanding of that pain that, to me, it becomes something heartwarming. Personally, I think a story that can both break your heart and make you hopeful for the healing power of kindness is one to be treasured.
“Her House There by the Mountain” by Kerry C. Byrne from Kaleidotrope Winter 2021
A different kind of story about loss and it’s aftermath but one that, again, I think many people can relate to. This one is dealing with the loss of a parent our main character had issues with, their legacy, inheritance and responsibilities. It’s a quiet story, the beginning of figuring out how to deal with such feelings and the beginning of figuring out new beginnings. With that we also get an anachronistic setting on an alien world that I would very much enjoy seeing more of.
That’s it for this week and as always if you’d like to see the full list of previous Roundups and the authors included in each you can find that here. I hope to be back in a week with another roundup. If you find something you enjoy reading in my recommendations I hope you’ll shout that story out to people you know.